NORTHAMPTON — Since its founding in 1991, Haymarket Cafe has strongly aligned itself with progressive values.
Named after Haymarket Square in Chicago, the site of a major labor demonstration in 1886 that led to the creation of May Day, the downtown cafe has been known in the past for being forward-thinking when it comes to paying employees, advocating for a living wage, abolishing tips and its common account to help provide discounted meals to those in need.
But over the past two years, the cafe has struggled to stay in business, opening and closing for intermittent periods. On Tuesday, store owner Peter Simpson went in search of a savior — asking for donations in a post on the cafe’s Facebook page, with a GoFundMe link giving a goal of $50,000.
“The cafe at this point, without a better financial base, will not be able to reopen,” Simpson wrote on the GoFundMe link, which as of Thursday had raised more than $19,000. “I hope that a real reopening can happen so that we can get back to serving this community that has been a significant part of my life in these last 32 years.”
The request for the public’s help, however, has upset some former Haymarket employees, who said this week that there are other reasons the cafe has struggled to stay afloat. In addition to sometimes not being paid, they allege that work conditions were unsanitary, that they had to deal with what they believe were violations of labor law and that they were routinely treated poorly by Simpson. The conditions led to multiple instances of employees quitting en masse, the workers said.
Aubree Guilbault, who began working at Haymarket in October 2022, said she was hired by Simpson through the job website Indeed. Though the work was demanding, she said at first Simpson appeared a nice and understanding boss, but his behavior soon took a turn.
“He just started talking about all the employees like they were less than,” Guilbault said. “He just didn’t really care about our safety. He only cared about the product that was being made.”
In one instance, Guilbault recalled Simpson sat in a van in the parking lot behind Haymarket and monitored worker activity on camera and would call to berate and scream at an employee if he saw them do something incorrectly.
Camila Hwang-Carlos, who worked at Haymarket during the same time period, also alleged mistreatment by Simpson. She described a culture of fear and anxiety in the workplace.
“It was my favorite job I’d ever had, that is, until Peter came in,” Hwang-Carlos said. “When Peter was there, every good part of our work disappeared.”
Hwang-Carlos documented several instances of what she and other employees thought violated health and labor standards, such as leaking water in the coffee station fridge and storing various goods inside utility closets, creating fire hazards. Hwang-Carlos filed a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) about the conditions, but the agency closed the case after Simpson responded to their inquiries saying that the addressed issues had been fixed.
The last straw for the employees during this time was in October 2022, when the cafe’s juice machine broke. When Simpson called to ask about it, a new employee who was still in high school answered the phone and he began screaming at her and other employees, demanding that she be fired and calling her names, Hwang-Carlos said.
Hwang-Carlos shared a screenshot of a text message Simpson later sent to the employee at 3 a.m. the next morning. “You are fired! You’re a pathetic worker,” the text stated. “Don’t call or email or anything.”
Concerned about their safety, all the cafe’s employees at the time decided to collectively quit.
Hwang-Carlos also filed a complaint with the Northampton Health Department but said eventually city officials stopped returning her calls on the matter. An inspection report by the health department conducted in November of 2022 shows the department found several violations, such as mold in the cafe’s ice machine and a missing door handle on the cafe’s restroom. Those issues were corrected on a follow-up visit, records show. A later inspection, dated in March 2023, also showed the cafe had rotting vegetables and unprotected soup in the cafe’s walk-in pantry.
In an interview this week, Simpson said that he had been undergoing a stressful time in his life during this period, with his relationship with his partner after 27 years ending and having to deal with reopening the business after COVID-19.
“I have very high standards,” Simpson said. “I’m sure I did snap at people every now and then, and I feel badly about that.”
Simpson also said he was homeless for nine weeks in March 2023 after the building department forced him out of his apartment above the cafe, adding to his difficulties in continuing to run the cafe.
“I would quite honestly sneak into the building and crash here,” he said. “That was certainly part of the issue in addition to struggling with the realization that the relationship was over.”
Over the last year, the cafe has been open and closed intermittently, shutting this past July only to reopen in August, then closing again, with varying periods where it was hard to tell whether the cafe was in operation. Employees during this time were frustrated over what they perceived as a disregard for the operation of the cafe.
“Haymarket Cafe doesn’t seem to be the typical story of a restaurant crippled by COVID — this seems to be an example of extreme mismanagement,” said Parker Houghton, who worked at the cafe in September 2023.
Houghton was hired as a baker at Haymarket and began on Sept. 13. He quickly noticed that unlike other food service jobs he worked at, there seemed to be a lack of organization, and he received no training other than being shown a recipe book.
“I went in with hopes of working my way into a top baker position once I was able to simply work around him,” said Houghton, who left after only four days and says he was never paid.
Like Hwang-Carlos, Houghton filed a complaint with the city’s health department, although he too did not receive a response. The health department documents show that inspectors did try to visit the cafe several times after that complaint, but that the establishment had once again closed, making them unable to inspect.
In the GoFundMe posted for Haymarket, Simpson did acknowledge he had failed to pay employees, as well as having outstanding bills to the building’s landlord and electric company.
“I feel a deep sense of shame that the cafe was unable to take care of these folks, such that if this was the only thing that this fundraiser could address, I would feel at least that was done,” he wrote. “After that, it would be to secure a couple of weeks of payroll for those who might join the Haymarket crew when we reopen.”
Dolly Colon-Rivera, another ex-employee who worked there from November to late December, said Simpson reached out to her after she uploaded her resume to Indeed, although she had not actually applied there, offering her $17 an hour. But she quickly noticed things were wrong when she began work.
“Almost everything was broken. He didn’t give us any supplies to open up the place properly,” Colon-Rivera said. “So we were always denying people of items that they wanted.”
After the first week, Colon-Rivera and other employees did not receive their first paycheck as Simpson said they would. She said Simpson assured them they would receive a direct deposit by Dec. 15, but when that date came, there was still no payment, leading to the employees to once again quit together.
“The cooks worked over 40 to 50 hours to get the kitchen and everything ready — it was so unfair because we all worked so hard,” she said. “That was my second time being hired somewhere and I was expecting to get some cash flow and get myself in order, and he really screwed us over.”
Zoe Gottschalk, who was hired around the same time as Colon-Rivera, also said Simpson reached out to her over Indeed, although she had not applied to the position. Originally hired as a barista, she said Simpson had made her manager on her third day and offered to pay her $20 an hour. When payday came and went with no money, she said Simpson gave her $70 that was in the register, only to ask her for $50 of that back to give to the cooks, she said.
After a period of working 63 hours and eight days straight with no promised pay, she decided she had enough and informed him she was quitting.
“Things he was saying weren’t adding up,” she said. “It got to the point where there was someone who came in from National Grid with a notice that said if you don’t pay your bill, we’re going to shut your power off.”
Simpson said that once the $50,000 is raised, he intends to clear debts owed to his landlord and cable and electric companies, as well as pay the wages he owes to employees, before reopening the cafe.
“This cafe is my life. It is me. It’s my home,” he said. “I feel badly, and I want to make it right.”
Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.
